One new prototype Veloce sprint spike, size 11, designed for 200m - 400m distance.

Requirements:
-Must be in Baltimore metro area.
-Must be a competitive level athlete (defined as 50 sec or better 400m)
-Must be looking to go to the next level at the 400.
-Must have written permission from your coach to experiment as this shoe will force you to change your form and may generate some slight muscle soreness until you acclimate to the new form.
-Must be willing to report and compare the spike to others you have worn.

Send application via MySpace mail with the following info:

Name:
School:
Year:
400 PR:
This year's 400 goal:
Current racing spikes:
Coach's Name:

A short statement as to why you would be a good-wear tester.

Selection to be made after Thanksgiving Day.

We rotate the top 24 friends based on photos of runners in running gear and try to rotate them periodically..

When you change your photo to football, dance, party animal, undercover agent, model, etc, you become an immediate candidate for replacement on our top 24, though we still think highly of you as a runner.

Note: You don't have to be really fast, really slow is OK, just look the part! It doesn't matter if you are a sprinter, hurdler, xc only, 5K road warrior, marathoner, or trail runner, just look the part and you will become part of the rotation one day!

Oh, no profanity, obscenities, or vulgarisims in your screen name either!

Results are on the web for those interested at www.striders.net.  The men's open team edged the Howard Co Striders for first, while the Coed team ran away with first and the Leftovers managed to take third in the Coed division.  As a result, all team members received certificates redeemable for a bottle of wine at Linganore Wine Cellars.  Plus, since so many team members placed in the overall or age group divisions, they also received wine tickets. 

The course was tough - up and down, around the grapevines, through the grapevines, down single-track trails in the woods, and more around and through the grapevines on the very challenging hills of Frederick County.

Congrats to all!

The Fells Point Running Store all-women's team acquitted itself quite well at the Baltimore Marathon Festival.  Krista Schultz led off with a strong first leg and passed the Baton to shop founder Deneen Habarta who cruised through the Inner Harbor leg.  SaraMac clipped off a stream of 6:30 miles on her run  on the uphill section to Clifton Park.  Michele Henchel reprised her glory days from Towson U by blasting the downhills to a strong second place finish for the running women of Fells Point.    

We had a pretty good relay team at Saturday's Baltimore Marathon Festival.  Ray Pugsley, Brian Godsey, Kip Bitok, and Eric Estrada.  We knew Antonenka had run 2:15 last year and was returning.  In '05 he had blasted a big lead on the field early and run away from the pack, and the race was pretty much over.

The guys resolved to run with the leaders all the way this year.  Ray led off, but immediately realized that the lead pack was just jogging (for them) at a 5:30 pace.  After two miles he took off, knocking out a 5:13 mile followed by a 5:04.

Nobody went with him, but he knew he had to build a cushion if they were going to have a race the last 10k.  4:52 next mile and finished the last 1.1 in 5:00.

Brian got the hand-off continued to work on the cushion through the relatively flat Federal Hill section, but knew at mile ten the team was on 2:16 pace would have been behind Antonenko here at last year's race.  But where was he and the rest of the pack?

The lead marathon pack was now about a minute and a half behind.  By the time Kip got the hand-off the team had about a two-minute lead.

Going up the hills from Patterson Park to Clifton Park the pack began to drop the pace, slowly closing the gap.  Eric could see the pack splintering as the leaders began to creep up on Kip on the uphill, and was thinking "Oh,  $#!+, here comes the charge."

Eric got the hand-off fifty yards in front of the rapidly shrinking pack and charged down 33rd street at a sub-five minute per mile pace.  Birhanu, the world-class Ethiopian half-marathoner, went after him and Antonenka and Wilson Komen also surged.   For three miles down 33rd Street the four of them battled it out, nobody refusing to buckle until Birhanu threw in a 4:40 mile 23 that broke that pack up and used his superior leg speed to put thirty-seconds between himself and last year's winner over the last three miles.

This followed the pattern of all Baltimore Marathons except the 2005...the pack runs together at a leisurely pace until Boston Street or the Hills from Patterson Park to Clifton, then drops the hammer on the hills to break the pack, and tries to race the last 10K down 33rd to the Harbor at breakneck pace on those long downhills.  I guess the question that Antonenko must be asking himself now is, "Should I have gone out with the relay team so that the race did not come down to a 5K downhill sprint at the end?"

(PS - For some reason the ChampionChip we had failed, and we didn't show up in the official results.  However, if you watched the television broadcast you could have seen the team in action)